A court in south central Vietnam sentenced six people to up to
two-and-a-half years in prison Thursday after finding them guilty of throwing
rocks, bricks and gas bombs at police in protests against a proposed law on
special economic zones.

The detention of an American citizen in Vietnam, arrested while
participating in a protest in Ho Chi Minh City, has again drawn international
media attention to social unrest in this fast-growing nation of close to 100
million.

Vietnam boasts one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, optimistic
citizens and a stable government. But below the surface of positive data points
lies discontent that spilled over during recent protests across the
country.

Thousands of people in central Vietnam demonstrated peacefully on Sunday
against government plans to lease new economic zones to foreign investors,
witnesses told Reuters, a few days after protesters in a nearby province
clashed with police.

China has warned its citizens in Vietnam after protesters clashed with
police over a government plan to create new economic zones for foreign
investment that has fueled anti-Chinese sentiment in the country.

Police in Vietnam detained more than a dozen protesters in the capital Hanoi
on Sunday and halted demonstrations in other cities against plans for new
special economic zones that the protesters fear will be dominated by Chinese
investors.

Vietnamese authorities on Monday (Sept 25) used water cannon and electric
rods to end a five-month long protest by villagers blockading a textile plant
that serves global fashion brands, an official and a villager said.

Six months after a chemical spill killed tons of fish and devastated fishing
communities along Vietnam’s central coast, anger over the episode is still raw,
posing a challenge for a government that has struggled to address it.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in Vietnam on Sunday against a Taiwanese
firm they accuse of causing mass fish deaths along the country's central coast,
with some also blaming the government for a sluggish response to a major
environmental disaster.

Demonstrators marched in Vietnam's capital on Monday to mark the 28th
anniversary of a bloody naval battle with China and to denounce Beijing's
growing assertiveness in the hotly contested waters of the South China Sea.

PHNOM PENH - Around 100 ethnic minority Khmer Krom monks and activists in
Cambodia continued their rally in front of the Vietnamese Embassy here on
Sunday, marking the 2nd day of a fresh protest against a Vietnamese
diplomat.